A Commentary by John Galsworthy — Read

She walked as though pressed for time, slipping like a shadow along the railings of the houses. With her skimpy figure, in its shabby, wispy black, she hardly looked as if she had borne six sons. She had beneath her arm a little bundle which she always carried to and fro from the houses where she worked. Her face, with tired brown eyes, and hair as black and fine as silk under a black sailor hat, was skimpy too; creased and angled like her figure, it seemed to deny that life had ever left her strength for bearing children.

Though not yet nine o'clock, she had already done the work of her two rooms, lighted the fire, washed the youngest boys, given the four at home their breakfast, swept, made one bed -- in the other her husband was still lying -- and to that husband she had served his tea. She had cut the mid-day ration of the two eldest boys, and, wrapping it in paper, had placed it on the window-sill in readiness for them to take to school; had portioned out the firing for the day, given the eldest boy the pence to buy the daily screws of tea and sugar, washed some ragged cloths, mended a little pair of trousers, put on her hat without consulting the cracked looking-glass, and hurried forth. And, since a penny was important to her, she had walked.